It seems that it’s looking specifically for ssh.exe eventhough I have specified the alternate ssh path in mercurial.ini. But my guess here is that that configuration is only for a ssh enabled mercurial server and doesn’t apply to the hg-git plugin.

5 Solutions collect form web for “Cloning a read-write github repository using TortoiseHg”

I have found a way around this but it’s pretty hackish. I noticed that ProcessMonitor was showing it looking for ssh.exe in several different paths so I copied the TortoisePlink.exe in the TortoiseHg folder and named it ssh.exe.

One thing not mentioned in the guide is that the 32-bit version of Pageant bundled with TortoiseHG cannot recognise the “git@” part in an url, and keeps asking for it. Downloading the 64-bit version of Pageant fixes this bug.